Sina Khanifar

If You Care About Privacy, You Should Be Calling Your Representatives

July 23, 2013

Today may be the single most important day so far since Edward Snowden began revealing the extent of the NSA’s surveillance dragnet. If you care about privacy, and you’ve read the news, you should have already picked up the phone and called your representative.

For the very first time, a vote is scheduled to occur in Congress on NSA surveillance. And unfortunately, this might also be the last vote on the issue.

Rep. Justin Amash, likely against the wish of senior party leaders, has managed to secure a vote on an amendment that would remove funding that would deny the NSA the ability to collect and store the phone calls records of every US citizen. That means every legislator in the House of Representatives will have to decide whether to vote for, against, or abstain on a bill that decides the future of a core piece of the NSA’s surveillance infrastructure.

If you care about privacy, now’s the time to act - no matter how disgruntled you may be with Congress. Just a dozen calls to a representative can be enough to sway their vote.

This may be the deciding moment on whether the thousands of hours that journalists, technologists and activists have poured into this will make a difference.

Of 40,000 visitors have arrived at DefundtheNSA.com so far today, only about 1,000 have actually picked up the phone and called. You can be part of the minority that not only complains, but actually does something about it.

Seriously, this shit matters. Take 5 minutes. Visit DefundTheNSA.com and actually make a call.